Jerry Dumas: Time to catch up during the wait

Published 6:17 pm, Wednesday, November 28, 2012

It's that time of year, after elections and the storm season are over, that I see various doctors to find out what's going on with myself. I enjoy the first three-quarters of these visits because you generally encounter someone in the waiting room you haven't seen in a while and it gives you an hour or so to catch up.

Scene: Eye doctor's waiting room. About eight people waiting. The door opens and a woman comes in and goes to the reception desk. She is the wife of a guy I played tennis with, some years ago.

"I'm Sue," she says. "11:15 appointment."

Sue looks around the room. "Are all these people ahead of me?"

"Yes," the receptionist says. She hands Sue a clipboard. "Here, you need to fill this out. Including your Social Security number. And I need to make a copy of your insurance card."

Sue says, "I just filled this sheet out a year ago."

"Well, you need to do it again."

"Look, there are no changes. Everything's the same. Why do you need to see my Medicare card again? You know all the info better than I do. I don't even know if I have my card with me. It was Medicare last year, and the year before that, and will still be next year, God willing. It's all in your computer."

"Have a seat," the receptionist says.

Sue sits beside me.

"Hi, Sue," I say. "How you doing?"

"Well, hello! It's been a long time! Harry keeps talking about you. Are you okay?"

"That's what I'm here to find out. No real complaints though."

We have plenty of time to talk. Sue says, "The storm is history, Thanksgiving is done, now all we have to do is get through Christmas and New Year's. Then we can rest and then it will be spring."

She sighs, and adds, "Things always look better if you take the long view."

***

A day later, in the waiting room of my general practitioner's office, I am talking with another old friend. He asks me how we made out in the storm.

"No power for seven days, but only two trees down. The temperature in the house got down to 49 degrees. The kitchen fireplace saved us. After four days and nights, cold, tired, no water, no light, I'm driving past a country club, and on a whim I turn in. I tell them I'd like to take a shower."

***

"Are you a member?" an employee asks.

"No, but I've spent a lot of time here over the years. Never been a member, but I've played golf, played in many member-guest tennis tournaments, had dinners, attended banquets and had a ton of lunches here."

"And now you want to take a shower?"

"Yeah, I figure you owe me one."

The joke doesn't go over.

But moments later the young woman puts down the phone and says, "The manager says, as long as the power's out, you can take as many showers as you like. But don't spread the news around that we're so nice."

Jerry Dumas is a writer and cartoonist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Smithsonian, The New Yorker and other periodicals. He lives in Greenwich.